Homemade Sausage Making

I made my first Polish Sausage this weekend. Only been doing this for about a month. I was very pleased how it turned out, flavor was awesome. The one thing I was very disappointed with was the 'toughness' of the casing. I soaked them for about an hour in water with a splash of vinegar. Now the more I read, I'm thinking I should have soaked them way over night. I smoked them to an internal temperature of 152 degrees, then gave them a shower in cold water until 110 degrees. So, suggestions? I'm using an electric smoker, and I live in Las Vegas, it was very difficult to keep the temperature around 160 on the smoker....I think I should have just turned it off and set it in the sun...haha.....but then I would not have had any smokey flavor from the wood chips. I did use a couple pieces of charcoal in the wood chips to get the smoking, but other than that, like I said, the toughness of the casing makes it slightly a 'fail' in my book.

Hi Scooter
What kind of casing did you use? Natural hog casing will have a snap that most of us like, but I would not call it tough. I start soaking/flushing mine a day or so before I use them, they will eventually turn to a nice white color (instead of grayish white) I have bit into the collagen and other man made ones and I did not care for them.
The smart folks will be along shortly to give you better advise.

Hey Darwin, yes I used Natural hog casing, but I only soaked the casing about and hour, of course my book said, 30 minutes, but it appears, that I should have gone the full 24-48 hours.....

Scooter, I remember seeing you name from SMF. This is an amazing place and you'll get lots of people to help you.

I have a couple thoughts as to the smoking process that may help. Go get yourself an AMNPS smoke generator would be the 1st. You didn't mention which smoker you used, but my 2nd would be to get an MES 30 Gen #1. It goes all the way down to 100F and is perfect for that slow rise for sausages. These 2 pieces of equipment will make your final product so much better. I dealt with the same issue of maintaining temps in my bullet style electric smoker. I ended up cold smoking in it and then hanging them in the oven at 175 to finish to the correct IT.

For the casings, I think the overnight soak (change the water a few times) will fix your tough casing issue right up.

Hello Scooterjam. Welcome to the forum. "Why is my casing hard" is a million dollar question and a conundrum that baffles even the professionals in the industry. The reason is that there is no one simple explanation.

To begin with, smoked home made sausage will always have a tougher casing on the finished product than on the sausage bought at a supermarket. We smoke our sausage for a lot longer than do the large producers. They smoke the sausage lightly, steam finish it, fill it with phosphates and binders and package before the sausage has a chance to dry. Some don't even actually smoke it, but add liquid smoke to the meat.

While there are other causes of a tough casing, the primary ones that come to mind are improper soaking and flushing of the casing, loosely stuffed sausage, and over drying during the setting stage. The latter is usually the main culprit. We are told to stuff the sausage and then let it set/dry for up to 12 hours in a cold environment. If you do that and place the sausage into the fridge overnight it may dry out the casings too much. If you dry at room temp for too long it also may have the same result. And it usually is not a good idea to direct a fan on the sausage (although I have done it a few times) to speed up the process. So it is a fine line when it comes to readying the sausage for the smoker. But it is something that will come to you with a bit of practice.

Another not unusual reason for tough casings has nothing to do with how you prepare them. Some hog casings are just naturally tough. Remember, it is a natural product, and each pig is different, so it is impossible to have 100% consistency. Just think of the times you had a tough steak or pork chop even though you prepared it the same way that you always have. And when it comes to hog casings the thicker the diameter, the thicker and stronger are the walls of the intestine. When I stuff sausage into 30-32 casings I have more bursts than when I stuff into the 40+ casings. And inasmuch as we don't like it, nearly all of the casings sold on the North American and European markets come from China. The entire process of handling, cleaning, salting and storing the casings also is a factor in this whole thing.

Now, as to your specific sausage making effort, from the little that you described, it may be that the temp in your smoker was a bit too high too quickly, and it was too dry in the smoker. Try placing a pan in the smoker to raise the humidity next time, or smoke the sausage at around 130 and finish by poaching. I would also make sure that the casings are also rinsed and flushed properly and soaked for longer than one hour. That way, at least you will rule out that as a cause of the problem.

If you have pics of the sausage, please post them, we would like to see them. And does the casing peel easily off the sausage?

What redzed said.

sorry for refreshing a topic ,but i just want to share my best way for preparing casing,after i take it out from bag(or jar depended where u bought it) I put it into water (temp . about 20-30 Celsius degrees ) for 1h,after that u need to change water for new one (i use directly tap water) same dagreese,for about 4-5h,after this time i NEVER got any problems with filling casing with meat. If i get too many and won't use all of em,simply put it back to jar with water and big amount of salt(put salt untill it drop of the bottom of jar and no disappeared in water!) in this case u can keep ur casing ready for next use even for one year

BTW. Hope my english is clearly to understand ,Im not native english speaker

Your English writing is quite good enough.

nadin wrote:sorry for refreshing a topic ,but i just want to share my best way for preparing casing,after i take it out from bag(or jar depended where u bought it) I put it into water (temp . about 20-30 Celsius degrees ) for 1h,after that u need to change water for new one (i use directly tap water) same dagreese,for about 4-5h,after this time i NEVER got any problems with filling casing with meat. If i get too many and won't use all of em,simply put it back to jar with water and big amount of salt(put salt untill it drop of the bottom of jar and no disappeared in water!) in this case u can keep ur casing ready for next use even for one year

BTW. Hope my english is clearly to understand ,Im not native english speaker

Hey nadin, welcome to the forum! Tell us more about your sausagemaking experiences and don't worry too much about your English. You have joined the WD Sausage Nation and we use only Sausagelese here.

I am after 3 years butcher trade school,also work 4 years in meat factory ,but .. only on boner ,or saw man possition,not much at sausage making ,in last few weeks im digging up my school notes about sausage making and starting it at home ,how u see my experience at this job isnt that good but i do some sausage and smoked porky meat as,leg muscles ,loins,ribs,even lard(not sure is that name corect i mean fat under neck meat)

here's some from last weekend

link for album (thinking it easier to look at) http://www.fotosik.pl/u/nadin4444/zdjec ... um/1673391


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